


We Will Own the Lilies Slender

by Marivan



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Best Friends, Booker/Nile in the epilogue, Coming Out, First Kiss, Fluff and Angst, Football | Soccer, Getting Together, M/M, Male Friendship, POV Outsider, Platonic Love, Romantic love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:06:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27582476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marivan/pseuds/Marivan
Summary: Joe falls head over heels for the cute guy in his Medieval Art seminar.Booker and the rest of the soccer team aren't so sure this is wise.A story of best friends coming to terms with what it means to love and be loved, in different ways.
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 63
Kudos: 516





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crookedcrown](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedcrown/gifts).



> Fill for this kink meme prompt:  
>  _Beloved star player Joe, who nervously came out last year and has been unyielding supported by the whole team, meets Nicky. Now the team is very overprotective of Joe because he falls in love so easily and tends to get his heart broken. Nicky has to win over the team while Joe is a sure thing._
> 
> As I was thinking about who Joe and Nicky would be in a University AU, I felt like I knew them because I had gone to school with people just like them. They say "write what you know," so the university in this story is based on my own alma mater, a certain University in New Jersey whose colors are Orange and Black.
> 
> Thanks as always to the Disaster Immortals discord server. Y'all keep me excited and motivated to create and to share.

Pre-season means August and the most ungodly hot and humid weather known to mankind. They’re in the locker room after practice and even if they should be undressing and showering and becoming presentable human beings again, everyone just kind of sits there for a few minutes, stuck and unmoving.

That’s when it starts.

“Yo Lykon, you pick up any ladies this summer?”

“Back living under my mama’s roof?” He pulls a face, and a couple of their teammates chuckle. “Hell no, wasn’t happening. What about you, Book? They say French women are particularly keen.”

Booker leans back against his locker. He folds his arms, lets a smirk settle on his face, raises his eyebrows.

There are shouts of “Yeah, Book!” and “Get it!”

“Oh you minx,” says Lykon, throwing a towel at him across the room.

“Joe was in Italy,” someone else says. “That had to be good for your romantic little heart.”

Joe barks a laugh. “I mean, most of the time on the dig I was exhausted and caked in dirt by the end of the day -- hardly date material.” He bends down to start untying his cleats. “But there were a couple of sunsets spent in the back of Marcello’s car. Making out.”

Joe is very studiously rolling down his socks and removing his shin guards. The room is silent.

Then Lykon, bless him, bends over next to him and knocks his shoulders into Joe’s. “Proud of you, my man.”

A smile creeps over Joe’s face as he sits up to see his expression mirrored on the seventeen other men in the room. “Thanks man,” he says. And slumps, boneless, back against his locker.

\---  
From almost the instant he set foot on the pitch for his first day of collegiate practice, the team had adored Joe. He had an uncanny ability to land a pass right at his strikers’ feet, to know when to press an opponent one-on-one and when to fall back, to anticipate the other team’s plays and direct his teammates in how to counter them.

Joe made all of them play better, and was practically allergic to praise himself. Any time any of them tried, they’d get a fist bump or a clap on the shoulder: “it was all that work you put in on shooting with your left foot” he’d say, or “only because you were right where you needed to be, my friend.”

Joe’s grin had become a fixture of their team dinners and his easy laugh an essential amelioration for long bus rides. The man had devastatingly specific opinions about Caravaggio and Jackson Pollack and would occasionally quote Milton or Dante right alongside Mean Girls or Lord of the Rings.

More than once, Booker thought that Joe was the poster child for the “Ivy League student-athlete,” and laughed because his friend, in the humblest way possible, had no notion that nobody else was as effortlessly good at all the things Joe seemed to be effortlessly good at.

Booker feels just how much of Joe’s heart he has given all of them. He knows, now that Joe has opened up about who he is, how easily he will give it to others.

\---  
Later that evening in their dorm room, Booker says, “They won’t. But if any of them give you any shit, let me know and I’ll take care of it.”

Joe smiles at him shyly, which Booker thinks is rather unlike Joe. But Booker also knows how much Joe had wagered by opening up to the team earlier, and figures he’s allowed.

“Thanks.”

Booker sits down next to Joe on his bed, leaning against the wall. “And if you ever want to go out and dance with some cute guys, I’d honored to be your wingman.”

Joe's smile gets wider. “I’ll let you know.”

\---  
They’re Juniors now and having dinner at Dial, their club, as usual. It’s the tail end of dinner service -- they’d stayed late after practice to watch tape together -- and they’re the only two sitting at their table.

Booker is only moderately paying attention: Joe can talk anyone’s ear off and Booker long ago mastered the art of the appropriate hmmms and oohhhs.

“Oh and there’s this devastatingly attractive guy in my seminar who has absurd opinions about the influence of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages in Europe. Like yes, there’s all this art that we get to talk about -- and I like talking about art, I do -- but for what? The notion that the church spent so much money on _decoration_ when most of their faithful were starving and dying is one of history's greatest travesties and to ignore that is…”

Booker smirks. It is oh so very Joe to bury the lede like this. Booker interrupts him. “But he’s cute, yeah?”

Joe’s mouth drops open, rant paused for the moment.

“Very.”

“You gonna ask him out?”

Joe snorts indignantly. “I am not going to attempt to date someone with such wretched opinions.”

“Sure.”

Booker gives it two weeks tops before his friend is head over heels for this guy.

\---  
The tap room at Key & Seal is fairly indistinguishable from the other clubs. Tiled floor, low ceiling, noisy with games of beirut and flip cup, and smelling powerfully of the shittiest beer known to man.

It’s the middle of the season, so they’re not supposed to be going out, but their game’s not till Sunday this weekend, and Joe wanted to go dancing and what will it hurt if they have a couple of watered down beers while they’re at it. They head to Key & Seal because it’s open on Fridays, no passes required.

The music is pumping on the dance floor upstairs, but Lykon finally managed to drag Joe away from a couple of girls who were overly interested in him. Joe assumes everyone, especially women, are just being friendly. It’s extremely inconvenient. This is why they don’t let Joe go out without supervision.

They are shooting the shit about MLS teams and nursing their cups of beast when Joe’s head snaps around and he grabs Booker's arm. Booker barely avoids getting a shirtfront of beer.

“It’s him. The one from my Medieval Art seminar.”

Booker and Lykon make eye contact. _Here we go._

“I’m going to talk to him.”

Before either of them can reason or protest, Joe is off, weaving through the crowd. They follow, because of course they do. They’re Joe’s teammates and his closest friends.

Booker sees him draw up next to a man with unremarkably brown hair and a prominent nose. The man is wearing a flannel over his t-shirt and Booker practically rolls his eyes. There’s a reason most athletes here end up dating each other: the normies don’t _get_ it, that their time and their choices are rarely their own.

Not to mention the woman this man is talking to? She’s wearing a Rugby team shirt.

Two red flags. This is never going to work out.

But Booker is a good friend, so he goes over to make sure Joe is hitting it off okay with his new beaux. They make introductions. The man’s name is “Nicky.” The woman is “Andy.” She excuses herself rather quickly -- “Imma see if there’s Smash happening in the TV room upstairs, if you need me” -- and in doing so confirms that both she and Nicky are members here. Key & Seal members are nerds, computer geeks, humorless engineers, misfits, another red flag. Booker catches the look of scorn she gives the three of them as she departs.

Yet, despite everything, Joe and Nicky do seem to be into each other, or at least they’re both capable of talking in detail about art after having consumed a couple of beers, which maybe isn’t the same thing, but it seems to be making them happy so whatever. Booker drags Lykon away to dawdle at playing a round of pool with him while keeping an eye on their friend.

\---  
Joe, Booker knows, is a naturally chatty person. Though he himself is not, he accepts this about his friend.

But recently all of Joe seems to talk about is this Nicky: He sees him coming out of the rec center soaked with sweat one morning before their own workout

\-- _he gets up early to play squash against some professors, can you believe it?_ \--

and he runs into Nicky at their favorite coffee shop off campus

\-- _impeccable taste, but I wouldn’t expect anything less. Did you know he tutors kids in Trenton twice a week?_ \--

and he’s meeting up with Nicky for dinner and studying afterwards

\-- _it won’t hurt you to talk to other people at Dial, Booker_ \--

And on and on.

When Booker finally awakens one Sunday morning on which they have the luxury of sleeping in, to find Joe’s side of the room empty, he groans and buries his head back in his pillows.

Joe returns about an hour later, looking much too chipper for someone who is usually as horrified of mornings as Booker is.

“Where’ve you been?”

“Oh, I went to church.”

“ _Church?_ ” Booker sits up abruptly. “You’re _Muslim_ , Joe. You don’t go to church.”

Joe shrugged. “I mean it was an eccumenical service, so I wasn’t unwelcome.” Booker looks at him, hard. “And the music was lovely,” Joe continues, “did you know Nicky sings in the chapel choir?”

No, Booker mutters, he did not know that. He flops backwards on his bed and flings an arm over his eyes.

This has happened before and Booker knows how it ended. And so he is, rightfully, very, very worried for his friend.


	2. Chapter 2

Their last game of the season is on a chilly Friday afternoon in early November. It is sunny and glorious and even though the league championship has already been won outright by another squad, the whole team is gunning for one more victory.

The only goal of the game is scored by Joe. A header during a melee in front of the net, which Booker knows Joe will take absolutely no credit for and fixate instead on the cross he slightly mis-timed for Lykon in the first half.

After the game, many of their teammates flock over to the stands to be well-wished by their family and friends, congratulated on a good season. Booker watches Joe jog over where Nicky is bundled in a pea coat, a striped scarf in school colors wrapped around his neck. Nicky’s smile when Joe spots him is the same sort of incandescently happy expression Booker knows is mirrored on his friend’s face. Nicky reaches over the railing to cup Joe’s face and Joe reaches up and kisses Nicky swiftly but unmistakably on the mouth. They break apart and Joe blushes deeply at something Nicky says and then throws back his head and laughs that wonderful, melodious laugh of his.

Booker glances at Lykon, who has also caught this exchange. Despite their victory, they share the same concerned expressions.

Lykon points out that Nicky has a book in his hands. “Jeeeeesh,” he says, “he can’t go two hours without studying?”

\---  
Booker and Joe are alone in the reading room at Dial doing homework, or trying to, when Booker blurts out, “We need to talk about Nicky.”

Joe glances up from his reading. He doesn’t say anything.

“Things seem to be progressing quite quickly,” Booker adds.

“So?”

“You hardly know the guy.”

Booker can see Joe shifting in his chair across the broad wooden table. He’s uncomfortable. Booker tries to smooth things over. “We’re just concerned about you. That’s all.”

“That’s all?” says Joe, an edge in his voice that Booker has rarely heard. “And yet you presume to know everything about my relationship with Nicky. About how fast or slow it should progress. About how well I do or do not know him. You, nor anybody else on our team, has ever even bothered to have a conversation with him and you dare to tell me that you think this man is unworthy of me.”

Joe leans back and crosses his arms, the expression on his face hardened. “Unbelievable.”

But this is exactly what Booker has been concerned about, that Joe loses his logic when he falls in love.

“We remember what happened with Merrick,” says Booker. “Do you?”

“Stephen was an ass.”

“Which you didn’t realize until after he cheated on you.”

“Nicky is not Stephen Merrick.”

“No, but he brought a book to our game. A book, Joe. Did he even watch you play?”

“Nicky’s a Comp Lit major. He brings a book everywhere.”

“See? You’re already making excuses for him. I seem to recall you making a lot of excuses for Merrick right up until you happened upon him fucking someone else in the bathroom at Campus Club.”

“That’s different and you know it.”

“How?”

Joe opens his mouth to begin to speak and then reconsiders. He pauses, folds his hands on the table in front of him. He looks Booker right in the eyes. “I love Nicolò di Genova with everything I am and you know what? I’m not having this conversation with you, Sebastien.”

He picks up his book and his laptop and his bag. “Goodnight. Don’t be a dick when you get back to the room.”

And he leaves.

\---  
They spend the next few days orbiting each other, barely talking.

Booker hears Joe’s alarm go off and pretends to be asleep while Joe putters around getting ready for their morning workout. Booker also needs to attend said workout but he waits till Joe closes the door behind him and then sprints out of bed.

He’s late. He gets chewed out by their coaches. He doesn’t care.

They don’t sit together during meals at Dial, purposely choosing different tables.

When one of them finds success in a drill or a scrimmage at practice, their cheers for each other are half-hearted, not loud and boisterous and affectionate as they used to be.

Their teammates notice, seem to scatter around the two of them as iron shards repelled by magnets.

After practice on the night the team usually all eats together, Booker takes his sweet time with his recovery. His left knee -- the one with the reconstructed ACL -- hasn’t been bothering him, but it can’t hurt to give it a little extra TLC. He heads to the training room and begins the sweet, torturous dance of the foam roller, wincing as he rolls out the muscles in his leg. He does the other leg for parity and then his back, because why not.

This is when Lykon’s face appears above him, blotting out the ceiling light.

“You’re going to be late for dinner. Again.”

Booker shrugs as best he can still draped over the roller. “Recovery is important.”

“That’s bull-fucking-shit, man, and you know it.”

Booker sits up, gives up all pretense of foam rolling. He lets out a long breath. Lykon sits down facing him.

“Dude. Talk to me.”

“I told Joe we- well I- was concerned about Nicky. I brought up Merrick-”

“-And it didn’t go well.

Booker huffs a laugh, at himself or the universe, he doesn’t know. “No it didn’t.”

They sit in silence. Lykon sits with his hand folded in his lap, still. Booker fidgets in the quiet; his fingers pick at the seam on the edge of the roller.

Booker doesn’t have words for what he wants to say. It’s not that he dislikes Nicky, he doesn’t know the man, has, as Joe noted, hardly said two words to him. Maybe it’s that he dislikes the idea of him. But no, really what he dislikes is the idea of the potential harm he poses to Joe in three or six or nine months when the charms of falling in love with Joe turn to the mundanity of trying to stay in love with an overly-talkative, overly-busy athlete and art history major. Booker knows deeply and personally that Joe will give so much, everything to the people he cherishes. Joe has been hurt before because of this, his finest quality, and Booker can’t, won’t let it happen again.

Eventually Booker says, “I'm just scared, you know?”

“Yeah,” says Lykon, “I do.”

\---  
About a week later, Booker is in the student center, nursing a coffee, scrolling through his phone and waiting for Lykon so they can knock out the problem set for Econ, when Nicky slides into the seat across the table from him.

“You and Joe had a fight. About me.”

Booker splutters. This was hardly how he was expecting to spend his morning. “I mean- I wouldn’t exactly-”

“Whatever you want to call it, the result is the same.” He pauses, inhales, turns his sharp green eyes on Booker. “You don’t have to like me, but you at least need to know me.”

Booker appraises the man before him. There’s a button down shirt underneath his open pea coat, that same school-colors scarf around his neck. He’s got his messenger bag slung across his chest. It all just seems a little too on the nose for a queer, Comp Lit major named Nicolò. But there’s something fierce, even leonine, in how he’s looking at Booker and Nicky’s clearly not going away till he gets the answer he wants, so Booker agrees with a shrug. “Sure.”

“Great,” Nicky says, reaching into the outside pocket of his bag and pulling out a small notebook and fountain pen. He opens the book to the marked page and scans it for a second. “Mmmm Joe mentioned that you don’t have morning practice tomorrow, so how’s breakfast at Key & Seal? 8 o’clock?”

 _The little shit--_ but Nicky cuts him off before Booker can get any words out. “For Joe?”

Booker does not want to wake up that early. He does not want to walk all the way to Key & Seal when Dial is much closer. He does not want to have an entire meal with Nicky, let alone the one synchronously with his first cup of coffee. Despite all of this, he says, “For Joe.”

Nicky scrawls something in his notebook and then stands to leave. “See you then.”

A few minutes later when Lykon finally shows up, Booker’s mouth is still hanging open in Nicky’s wake, gobsmacked.

\---  
Booker takes a seat at one of the round tables by the windows the next morning, while Nicky is ordering an omelette from the grill. There are a few other people around, and everyone, including the woman working the grill, greets Nicky with warm expressions. It’s like what happens anytime Joe walks into Dial. The familiarity makes Booker, somehow, even more uncomfortable.

Nicky has barely settled in his seat when he says, “If we’re going to get to know one another, tell me about yourself.”

Booker shrugs, forks a pile of scrambled eggs into his mouth, chews, swallows. “There’s not much to say. I’m an Econ major who plays soccer.”

“Where are you from?”

“New York.”

“City?”

“Brooklyn. But not the nice part.”

They both fall silent. Eggs and toast are consumed. Coffee is downed.

Eventually, Nicky tries again.

“Booker’s a nickname, yes?”

“It is.”

“You particularly studious, or something?”

Booker barks out a laugh. “God no. My last name’s le Livre which means--”

“-- ‘the book’ in French.” Booker turns to look at Nicky. Nicky shrugs. “Comp Lit.”

“Anyway, I think one of my youth league coaches got tired of trying to yell ‘le Livre’ at me and so started yelling “Book” instead. It stuck.”

“You didn’t try to reinvent yourself once you got here?”

“I mean Americans can’t really say ‘Sébastien’ right anyways, so it’s just easier, I guess.”

“That, I understand. Americans always put the emphasis in Nicolò the wrong place even though there’s an accent. It’s right there. It’s not hard. Easier to just go by Nicky.”

Booker smiles into his coffee mug. “Immigrant parents?” he asks.

Nicky nods. “Yeah, that obvious?”

“I think my parents named me so that they’re the only ones who can actually pronounce my name.”

“I wouldn’t put it past mine. I grew up in this big Italian town in suburban New Jersey, but most of them were Sicilian and my parents are from Genoa… and not all Italians are created equal, trust me.”

Booker actually laughs this time. “I took French my freshman year here and my prof had the audacity to tell me that my accent was ‘unsophisticated.’ Lady, we can’t all be from _Paris_.”

“Exactly.”

After that it gets easier. Nicky talks about his research about love poetry in three languages -- Latin, Italian, and English -- and running the student volunteers council, which sounds like trying to herd cats and also maybe Booker’s biggest nightmare, but all the more power to him.

Booker still feels like he doesn’t have much to say. Econ is fine, but he doesn’t have a passion for it the way Nicky does for literature. He feels bad talking about soccer because he’s sure Nicky hears enough of it from Joe. Nicky does eventually get Booker going off on the New York Red Bulls vs New York City FC saga and Booker can’t tell if his eyes are actually twinkling with mirth, and, if so, if the mirth is with him or at his expense.

Nicky’s got a 9am class -- of course he does, the overachiever -- so they part ways shortly after wrapping up their meal and exchanging cell numbers.

Booker decides the least he can do is offer some kind of olive branch and so says as they depart. “Let’s do this again sometime?”

Nicky grins. “That’d be nice.”

\---  
Neither Joe nor Booker ever say anything, but after that, things begin to return to normalcy.

They start walking to practice together. They order pizza when they’re both up late finishing assignments in their room. They sit together at Dial and for team dinners.

Lykon slides into the seat next to Booker in the lecture hall all of ohe minute before their Econ class is meant to start.

“You seem less… scared? About Joe.” He says, low and leaning in so Booker can hear him.

Their professor launches into talking about moral hazard and adverse selection and Booker slumps in his seat.

“Maybe? I don’t know, man.”

Lykon hums in response, but says nothing else.

And then, suddenly, it’s winter break. They pack their bags and take the train from campus together: Booker to the city, Joe to the airport. Just before Joe’s stop, he squeezes Booker’s shoulder and says, “See you soon, friend.”

\---  
Booker hates reading week, but Joe is in his element, drafting and revising final papers, talking through potential counter-arguments, using everyone’s need to study as an opportunity to socialize by going and sitting next to different people in different libraries while they work mostly silently.

Booker rarely leaves their room, spends most of his days sitting at his desk staring at blank documents with little idea of what he wants to say or how to get started. He likes reading just fine, but writing? No.

Joe returns one afternoon to find him in the same state as he left Booker that morning, except that the pretense of writing has largely been abandoned for solving slide puzzles on his phone.

“That’s it,” Joe says, yanking Booker up and out of his chair. “You’re coming with me.”

“I’m working on my paper for Anthro.”

“Bullshit, Booker. A change of scenery will help. I promise.”

That’s how Booker gets frogmarched into crashing one of Joe and Nicky’s study dates.

\---  
Nicky has taken over a classroom in the Literature building and when Joe walks in with Booker on his heels, Nicky doesn’t even blink.

They settle in and Nicky unpacks a copious number of snacks. “To share.”

Joe shoots him a warm look and a “Thanks _habibi_ ,” and snags a mini-pack of popcorn to fuel his next burst of paragraphs.

Booker’s once again staring at a blank screen -- the change of scenery evidently hasn’t helped as Joe promised -- when Nicky looks up from his own laptop and says, “What are you working on Booker?”

“Paper for Anthro.”

“On?”

“Empires and Colonization.”

“So what are you thinking about?”

Booker rambles a bit about European attempts to colonize other European groups -- Napoleon, Nazis -- and the forms of resistance in those conflicts compared to resistance to European colonization elsewhere. Nicky listens carefully, asks good questions. By the end of their conversation, Booker, to his surprise, no longer wants to throw his laptop, Anthro paper and all, out the window, and knows exactly where to start.

The guilt hits a moment after the surprise and relief. Booker feels bad that he’s taken up so much of Nicky’s time with his dumb paper. He says as much to Nicky. Nicky bats the comment away: “You have great ideas, Booker. It’s always fun talking to people with interesting ideas.”

And that’s when Booker sees it, really sees it, the deep similarity between this man and his best friend. Nicky has more or less single-handedly saved his Anthro paper, and has just refused to take any credit. Booker tries to shoot Joe a meaningful look, but Joe is absorbed in whatever he’s writing, doesn’t even seem to be paying attention to them. Booker can’t decide if that’s better or worse.

They work in each other’s company for the next couple of hours. Sometimes Joe and Nicky share these looks that seem to encompass whole conversations, which Booker can’t help but roll his eyes at, but, honestly, they’re both pretty good company, keeping each other (and him) on task with the occasional witty comment just to keep things interesting.

They part ways around dinner time, Joe dropping a kiss on Nicky’s cheek. Booker wonders if they’re usually this reserved in public, or if they’re being restrained for his benefit.

As he and Joe are walking together to Dial for dinner, Booker says, “Thanks for this afternoon, by the way.”

“You’re welcome, friend. Of course.”

“It was-” _-nice,_ he wants to say. “It helped. A lot.”

Joe claps a hand to the back of his neck and turns his face and his smile towards Booker.

“I’m glad.”

Booker’s almost forgotten what it was like to be the object of Joe’s happiness, his affection. It feels good. It feels like he has his best friend back.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone reads this little story. It has been an absolute delight to share it with all of you!

Unlike the last time Booker was here, Key & Seal’s dining room bustles with people. Somehow, he and Nicky are having lunch together.

“You’ve never seen _When Harry Met Sally_?”

Booker shakes his head.

“ _Groundhog Day_?”

“Nope.”

“ _Love Actually_?”

“Joe made me watch that one our freshman year, right before Christmas.”

“Oh bless him. At least one of you is cultured.”

“Says the man who reads poetry in three languages and still watches shit movies.”

“They are not shit, so help me God.” Nicky pinches the bridge of his nose, surely for dramatic effect. “Formulaic, I’ll allow, but--”

“Don’t let him bully you into this conversation.” The speaker, a woman, _Ann-something_ Booker recalls from that night last fall in the taproom, flops into a chair across the round table from them. She shoots a fond grin at Nicky and then her eyes look him over to him and narrow in scrutiny. “You’re Booker.”

“I am.”

The woman snorts. “Well if even half the things Nicky has told me about you are true, then I’m not actually sure it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

Booker gapes at the woman, the woman who just majorly put him on blast. The woman is still drilling him with her expression and Booker is staring back and he shouldn’t be at all turned on by this, but maybe he is just a little? And what is he even supposed to say to that except “Yeah, I was a massive dick. Nice to meet you, too”?

To Booker’s surprise, it’s Nicky that speaks next. “Be nice,” he says. And then more quietly, “please.”

The woman looks between Nicky and Booker several times, then leans towards Booker and sticks out her hand. “I’m Andy. We’ve met.”

He takes her hand. “Booker. But you know that.” She smirks at him before pulling her hand away and leaning back in her chair.

“So you two have apparently kissed and made up?”

“Technically, it was Joe and Booker who were fighting.”

“About you, Nicky. They were fighting about you.”

“I may have persuaded Booker here that it was better for everyone if we tried to get to know each other.”

Booker snorts. _Persuasion_ is not the word he would use to describe his first encounter with Nicky -- more like _steamrollered_ \-- but regardless he could no longer deny that Nicky was an alright dude.

Andy, a mouthful of pizza, turns to him and says, “You don’t say much do you?”

Booker shrugs. Andy throws back her hand and practically cackles.

“I still don’t like you,” she says pointing her pizza slice at him, “but at least you’re entertaining.”

Direct seems to be the way that Andy operates, so Booker asks, “Why don’t you like me?”

“Varsity athlete.” She shrugs, as if this was obvious.

“You seem to like Joe well enough.”

“Joe’s different. Joe can charm the pants off of anyone, even me, practically, which is impressive for someone like him.”

“Someone like him?”

Nicky jumps in, “Andy’s girlfriend, Quynh, is studying abroad this year.”

“Ah.”

“Aaaaaand,” Andy says with a drawl, “this is where the straights usually make some shitty joke about dykes playing rugby.”

Everything about this woman seems sharp and dangerous. _People make jokes about this stuff? Around her?_ He tightens his lips and shakes his head.

Apparently this passes some kind of test because she turns to Nicky and says, “You can keep him.”

Nicky snort-laughs. “Glad to have your approval, boss.”

Booker is not totally sure what just transpired, but it seems positive? He aims for self-deprecating. “I do try not to be an asshole, most of the time.”

Andy makes a noise in the back of her throat. The corners of Nicky’s mouth turn up. She says, “And the rest of the time you’re a soccer player.”

“For the record,” Booker states, “I still do believe that Rugby players all have chips on their shoulders.”

“We do.” Andy leans back in her chair, fingers steepled in front of her. She smirks.

Booker decides to take the bait. “And why is that?”

With a totally straight face and her gaze never leaving Booker’s, she says, “We have bigger dicks than the rest of you.”

_What?_ Booker’s mouth drops open and his eyes search Andy’s face for any indication of how he’s supposed to react. She holds him in suspended panic for a moment or two before one side of her mouth quirks up and he finally sees her eyes twinkle with pleasure. Booker curls into himself and laughs from deep, deep within his chest, his forehead coming to rest on the table for a moment. When looks back up at Andy, she’s laughing too, and neither of them can seem to stop.

“On that note,” Nicky says dryly, standing up with his plate, “I need to go study, but please don’t stop bro-ing out on my account.”

Nicky pats Booker on the shoulder and ruffles Andy’s hair as he leaves. Booker leans back in his chair and grins at Andy, ready for whatever unexpected thing might come out of her mouth next.

That night, back in their room, Joe inquires about how his lunch with Nicky went, Booker thanks him for making him sit through _Love Actually_ two years ago (“See? A necessary part of your education”) and mentions that he seems to have garnered Andy’s approval.

“How’d that happen?”

“I’m not totally sure? I think it was mostly by not being a raging homophobe. And also accepting that my dick is smaller than her metaphorical one.”

Joe’s cackle of delight is so loud it might just have woken their neighbors.

\---  
They’re all chanting “Joe Joe Joe Joe Joe” and Booker joins in, stamping a foot, adding to the ruckus.

Exams are over and the seniors on the team decided they all needed a big night out with alcohol and debauchery aplenty. Booker’s sitting on the floor leaning against the arm of a ratty couch, as his teammates occupy just about every surface around the perimeter of the room, desks, window seats, couches. Booker’s got a red plastic cup full of rum and coke, a lovely floaty buzz from the booze, and has so far been spared as the target of their game.

Lykon’s just completed his dare -- something about gin and tonics and a fake British accent -- and his eyes prowl the room for whose turn will be next. He relents to the mounting chorus of the rest of the team. “Joe, my man, truth or dare?”

“Truth.” Joe grins.

Lykon rubs his hands together in excitement. “Alright, tells us about your first time with Nicky.”

Booker whoops. Cat-calls smatter across the room.

Joe looks down at the drink in his hands, then back at Lykon. He cocks his head slightly to the side. “Well,” he begins, drawing out the one syllable word, “we’d each been working on our papers for art history when the alarm rings in the library, the one that goes off just before closing. We’re down on the lowest level, so that means they start turning off the lights like right after the bell rings, so we’re frantically trying to pack up all of our belongings and hauling ass through the stacks back to the elevators. Nicky hits the up button on the elevator just as the last of the lights go out on the floor. We’re standing there, both breathing heavily because we’ve just sprinted to the elevator, and it’s dark except for the emergency exit sign and I’m looking at him and he’s looking at me…” Joe pauses and takes a sip of his drink. The whole team groans. Booker’s chest is vibrating in silent laughter at his friend and his brilliance, drawing this out. “... and then the elevator dings and the doors open and flood us with light and the moment was ruined.”

“Jo-oe,” someone groans.

“Dude answer the question,” someone says.

“So, we get outside the library and Nicky leans in and says, ‘Hey, can I show you something?’ and because I could never deny my handsome man anything I say, ‘sure,’ and he grabs me by the hand and drags me around to the back of the Chapel and down a flight of exterior steps. He pulls a set of keys out of his bag and winks at me and unlocks the door and then we’re in the basement of the chapel, the room where the chapel choir rehearses. Nicky doesn’t turn on the lights but drags me across the room and up a flight of stairs, and through a doorway and then we’re standing in the chapel proper, right in front of the altar. And the way the ambient light filtered in the stained-glass windows and illuminated the space, it was breathtaking. And I said, ‘it’s beautiful’ and then Nicky turned to look at me and he said ‘you’re beautiful,’ and then I kissed him.”

“Your first kiss was in a CHURCH?” one of their teammates cries. And everyone laughs, including Booker. Of course Joe and Nicky would have their first kiss clandestinely in a holy place. Of course they were that perfect.

Joe smirks and shrugs and Booker can tell he's extremely pleased with himself and with people’s reactions.

“Hold on, everybody.” Lykon’s voice cuts through the excited chatter that’s sprung up in the wake of Joe’s tale. “That’s a great story, but our friend here still hasn’t answered his question.”

“What do you mean?” Joe vocalizes the question that’s on everybody’s lips.

“I asked about your first _time_ , not your first _kiss_ , you dingus.”

“Oh.” Joe’s face falls instantly. Flames of red rush up his neck and settle on his cheeks. He glances away, suddenly finds the rim of his red plastic cup extremely interesting. Nobody moves. The silence is thick.

_Shit_ , Booker thinks, _shit shit shit._

Joe takes a deep, steadying breath. He lifts his face back to meet the stares of his teammates. “Guess I’m drinking the rest of this then,” Joe says, and salutes the room with his cup.

Someone calls, “Yes, Joe!” and Joe lets the rest of the alcohol in his cup slide and burn down his throat. He tosses the cup carelessly into the center of the circle when he finishes and with a smirk, turns and says, “Booker, truth or dare?”

\---  
They eventually drag themselves out to Dial, where they swap cheap liquor for even cheaper beer, and splinter off into smaller pockets of friends. Nicky and Andy have joined them, and despite Nicky’s protests that he can’t dance, Joe has dragged him off onto the dance floor.

Booker is leaning against the wall next to Andy, feeling like parents chaperoning their pre-teens at a school dance. Andy mentions the trip the rugby team is taking to Bermuda on their break between terms, that she’s looking forward to warmer weather and not getting tackled on frozen solid ground for a change. Booker shares he’s going to spend the break writing the lit review for his departmental research paper that was technically due in December.

Neither of them take their eyes off of Joe and Nicky, swaying together on the dance floor. Even though the music is loud and the bass thumping, Joe and Nicky move in time to their own beat, in sync with only each other, the eye of the thrashing hurricane of bodies around them.  
“They really are good together,” murmurs Andy, just loud enough over the music that Booker catches it.

He turns to look at her. “Yeah, they are,” he says back.

Andy grins, knocks her shoulders into his. “You’re not so bad yourself, you know.”

Booker ducks his head. “Thanks.”

When they turn their attention back to the dancefloor, all of the sweet innocence of earlier has departed from their dear friends. Their bodies and mouths are melting together and hands are reaching lower, skimming underneath shirt hems and grasping at buttocks.

“Alright then,” says Andy simply. She grabs Booker’s hand and begins dragging him to the stairwell down to the taproom. “I am not hammered enough to want to watch that any longer.”

Booker laughs and allows himself to be tugged along in Andy’s wake.

\---  
As the spring semester dawns, Booker’s social life has never been busier. He goes to workouts and practices and team dinners and team nights out. He goes to class and mostly does his reading. He stays after practice to review film with Joe or gets roped into watching a Premier League game in the TV room at Dial. All of that is normal and good.

Just like his first conversations with both of them, Nicky and Andy continue to drop into his life and his calendar with every expectation that he’ll be joining whatever it is they’re up to. It starts when Andy runs into Booker between classes, says “You’ve got plans for tonight,” and hands him a ticket to the university symphony. “They’re playing Rachmaninoff and I absolutely refuse to third wheel Joe and Nicky.” He’s never been to the symphony on campus before, honestly didn’t know there was one, really, but it’s kind of fun getting gussied up with Joe and listening to the three of them bicker over the pacing and interpretation at intermission.

The next time it’s Nicky texting him saying, “My RA friend had a bunch of samosas left over from a study break. They’re from the place Joe hates, but I’m guessing you don’t mind. Want in?” Booker shows up at Nicky’s suite 10 minutes later and Nicky makes him watch the first half of a truly terrible rom com, as they tear through the leftovers, helped along by Nicky’s roommates. Booker almost falls asleep on Nicky’s couch and Nicky kicks him out because, “I’ve learned my lesson about you and mornings before coffee.”

It continues like that. Nicky gets them cheap tickets through his department to some experimental French theater in New York. Andy tells them to come to her scrimmage because “otherwise we will have no fans.” Nicky and Andy slot into Booker’s life like a puzzle piece he didn’t even realize was missing.

\---  
Several weeks later, Booker returns to their room one evening after cranking out a problem set. As he opens the door, he spots a lump curled up on Joe’s bed. The door closes behind Booker and he flips on the lights and the lump’s eyes spring open -- Nicky’s eyes. Everyone freezes. Joe and Nicky lay on their sides and Joe has an arm around Nicky and Booker can tell that Joe’s face is buried in the back of Nicky’s neck, but all Booker can see really is the puff of Joe’s curls from behind Nicky’s broad shoulders.

“I’ll just--” begins Booker, starting to back out of the room.

Nicky squeezes Joe’s wrist and then slides out from between his arms. “No, no. I was just heading out,” says Nicky, loudly -- too loudly -- and bends to press a kiss to Joe’s forehead. “Good night, _amore mio_.”

Nicky stuffs his feet into his shoes and grabs his bag from the floor and slides past Booker into the hallway. Before he leaves he says, “I’m sorry for invading your space, Booker. It won’t happen again.”

\---  
The next morning Joe is apoplectic with apologies as they walk to breakfast together. “I should have asked you first” and “I didn’t think we would fall asleep” and “I don’t want you to ever feel like I’m kicking you out” and “it’s your room too, Booker.”

“It wasn’t a big deal Joe, honest,” he says and means it. Eventually that penetrates Joe’s thick cloud of worry.

“I also don’t want to prevent you two from having time alone together,” Booker says slowly, when Joe has stopped apologizing a mile a minute. “Time for you to do- um- physically- whatever will make you happy?”

Joe turns to him, eyes narrowed. “Book?”

“Sex, Joe. I mean sex.”

“Oh.”

Neither of them seems to know what to say next. Joe has his hands shoved into the pockets of his coat and is very carefully inspecting the sidewalk where they’re walking.

“I mean-” Joe begins, still looking at the ground. “Well- we’ve talked about it. But- like-”

“Know that I can always crash on Lykon’s couch for a night.”

Joe finally looks up at Booker and grabs his arm. Booker stops, meets Joe’s eyes. “I would never ask that of you. It’s not fair. We’ll figure something else out. Seriously.”

\---  
Booker: I need your assistance with a TOP SECRET operation.

Andy: what

Booker: Joe and Nicky won’t bang because they’re too concerned about disrupting their roommates.

Andy: GOD  
Andy: these two  
Andy: I swear

Booker: I KNOW

Andy: we need to lock them in a room together

Booker: My thoughts exactly…

The next weekend, Booker makes excuses to his coaches and teammates that he needs to go home and help his mother with something urgent. Andy, newly appointed captain of her team, just cancels practice altogether. Andy’s family owns a house down the shore. It’s not really beach season yet, but that’s fine because all they’re planning to do is their homework while shooting the shit, watching crappy TV, and day drinking.

Before he leaves, Booker leaves a note on the door to the room: “Be back Sunday around 10pm. Have fun and be safe, kids. -- XOXO Booker and Andy”

Neither of them hear from Joe or Nicky all day. Andy thinks that’s a good sign. Booker panics that they haven’t figured it out yet.

Much, much later that evening, Booker’s phone dings and he snatches it up instantly.

Joe: Well played, my friend. I would wish you an equally excellent weekend, but there’s no way you’re having a better time than me right now, so…

Booker laughs and shows the text to Andy, who joins him. His phone dings again.

Joe: And thank you. It means a lot.

A warmth settles in Booker’s chest. He loves these people, he realizes, Andy and Nicky and, especially, Joe, and making them happy will make him happy, now and always.

\---  
 **Epilogue**

“So Bas told you to get a room and then literally got you the room,” says Nile, with a laugh.

“Well, half a room,” says Nicky.

Then Joe, “And we mostly stayed on our side.”

“Kinky bastards,” adds Andy, with a wink.

“Stop. Nope,” cries Booker. “It was more than 10 years ago and I still don’t want to know which of my belongings you defiled with your love making.”

Joe rests a hand on Booker’s shoulder. “Someday, my friend, the truth will out.”

They all laugh, the comfort of old friends and old memories settling around their shoulders along with the late May heat. They’re standing in a courtyard between two beautiful collegiate gothic buildings -- the shitty dorms, he made sure to inform Nile when she complimented them -- and day drinking the most tasteless beers any of them have consumed in years, in the name of nostalgia.

Booker reaches down and squeezes Nile’s hand for reassurance. Booker and Andy have flown back from California for their 10th reunion, and Nile, bless her, purley out of her love for Booker, has undertaken the gauntlet of spending the weekend with people, most of whom she’s never met, reminiscing about “good old days” she hadn’t been a part of. She’s handled the whole thing with aplomb.

And she got to -- finally -- meet the infamous Joe and Nicky that he knows she’s heard so much about. Seeing the people he loves most in the world, Joe, Nile, Andy, and Nicky, fall into such easy conversation, does something to him. It must be his allergies making his eyes all scratchy.

Minutes or hours later, time ceases to matter at these events, Andy has escaped to try to put the men’s rugby alumni in their place, and Joe and Nicky have excused themselves and wandered off. Nile turns to Booker and beams are him. “They really are disgustingly adorable,” she says.

“I never lead you astray in these things, _ma cherie_.”

She snorts and presses a quick kiss to his cheek. “Says the man who didn’t think Nicky was good enough for Joe when clearly they’re perfect for each other.”

“That was a long time ago and it all worked out in the end.”

Nile hums in agreement and, despite the heat, Booker’s hands seek out the small of her back and pull her in close. She rests a hand on his shoulder; the other the runs through the hair at the nape of his neck.

“And I got it right when it really mattered, didn’t, I?” He murmurs.

“That you did.”


End file.
